The Leading Step
by Falneou17
Summary: A rumor has been going around the web lately, and Saten Ruiko is determined to find out the truth about it. Dragging her friends with her, will she be bringing them on a wild goose chase or is it not as random as it might seem?


**Today's the day! Saten Ruiko Day is upon us! Yeah, I'm not a big fan of how the day was chosen, but hey… at least it is easy to remember and to understand how people chose this day (unlike some shipping names of other franchises…). Needless to say, today's special focuses upon the amazing, the incredible, the one and only: Saten Ruiko!**

 **Again, like the Shirai Kuroko-focused oneshot that I did earlier this update stream: characterization will be based on their Railgun counterparts (not like there is an Index counterpart for the girl of the hour, but this is a warning for the _other_ characters that may or may not appear in this oneshot).**

 **Special thanks to Namitaa776 _and_ LightZephyr for helping out! You're both the best!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Toaru Majutsu no Index _or_ Toaru Kagaku no Railgun, nor do I, in any way, shape or form intend to pretend that I do**

* * *

Academy City was as beautiful as ever, and with peace slowly returning to its borders, the inhabitants were enjoying the nice sun out.

For a certain teenage girl, this only helped to fuel her desires. With a determined look on her face, she kept scrolling through the online forums that she had been on for the past hour and grinned.

She was so into reading the posts that she didn't realize her phone going off, and only picking it up after the third ring.

"Ah, Uiharu, sorry sorry…" the girl quickly said after making sure that she had her phone secured between her ear and shoulder, "Yeah, I'll be there in a bit! Please wait a little longer, okay?"

Satisfied, Saten Ruiko ended the call on her own terms and took one last look at her screen. It was then that she saw something that she had missed on her first read through it, and she grinned when the image came into view.

* * *

"There! Right there! Can you see it?" Ruiko asked enthusiastically as she quite literally shoved her phone's screen in Kazari's face, the latter not knowing how to respond.

A few minutes had passed, and Ruiko had caught up to her waiting friends in Joseph's Coffee and Restaurant before the rumor-fanatic had let loose. As Kazari was helpless in trying to keep the hyper girl in check, the other two girls were just watching in silent amusement.

"Saten-san, come on now…" Mikoto tried, hoping that she could somehow save the situation that they had found themselves in, "Now could you take a deep breath and tell us what you found again?"

"There is this rumor going around that there is a girl about our age who can't get damaged!" Ruiko explained again after a few seconds, but not any less enthusiastic as before. Turning her phone over in her hand, the black haired girl smiled as she saw the familiar image before showing it back to her friends, "And here is a list of everybody who saw her!"

"Everybody who _say_ that they saw her," Kuroko corrected her friend but was effectively ignored when Ruiko's directed her attention to her childhood friend. Instead, the Teleporter turned to her senior, "What do you think, Onee-sama?"

Going unseen by her friends, Mikoto was the only one who actually reacted to the news that Ruiko brought up rather than the energetic girl herself. As a result, the Electromaster took a while before she actually responded to the question.

"Saten-san, what do you want to do with this?" the brunette asked carefully despite already having a hunch as to what her friend wanted to do. Even before her question was answered, Mikoto knew that her suspicions were confirmed.

"I want to see whether or not she's real!" Ruiko announced energetically before turning to Mikoto, "Besides, weren't all those other rumors true as well? The Level Upper was and didn't Misaka-san met the guy who can cancel any ability?"

"Right…" Mikoto trailed off as she remembered her past fights with that level zero. Deciding that her friend was making a good point, the brunette decided to make the decision that nobody was willing to make, "How about it?"

"What do you mean, Misaka-san?" Kazari asked as she looked up from Ruiko's phone, the curious look on her face only matched by those on Kuroko's and Ruiko's.

"I mean that we could try and look for her," Mikoto suggested nonchalantly.

"That makes sense," Kuroko trailed off, surprising Mikoto at her sudden agreement before the tawny-haired girl turned to her partner, "If someone like that really does exist we would want her to be on our side."

As Kazari nodded silently, Mikoto made a mental note to thank Kuroko later. The other three girls stood up one by one, and when they looked at the brunette she only motioned for them to go ahead of her.

"I'll be right there, I need to go to the toilet real quick," Mikoto thought up quickly, and the three first-years shrugged before leaving the café.

Once she knew that they were out of earshot, Mikoto took out her phone and dialed the number of a certain blonde.

 _"Ah, Misaka-san, to what do I have the honor of you calling me on this fine morning?"_

"Remember that favor that you still owed me? I need you to do something for me," Mikoto muttered through gritted teeth, keeping her annoyance in check by reminding herself why she was calling the blonde on the other end of the call.

* * *

It was starting to get late, the sun was starting to set and had already dyed the sky in a warm orange color when the four girls finally stopped beside a building to rest. With Ruiko in front leading the way based on what the rumors had told her, they had run circles around the city but didn't even find a clue as to this legend girl's whereabouts.

It was Kuroko who voiced her complaints first.

"We've been… doing this… all day…" the Teleporter panted, surprised at her own degree of exhaustion as she was doubled over all the while shocked at Ruiko's lack of exhaustion. After a couple of seconds had passed in which Kuroko managed to stand up straight again, she added, "As much as I wanted to see this invincible girl, I think we should go home."

"I agree," Kazari added from her spot on the bench as she checked the time, "Curfew is coming up, so Misaka-san and Saten-san should head back, anyway."

"I guess…" Ruiko sighed, disappointed that the day had been so fruitlessly spent but still happy that her friends had followed her this far. Even so, even she knew when it was time to stop, "Misaka-san?"

Mikoto was about to follow suit when she saw movement from the corner of her eyes, "There!"

Pointing towards something in the alley, the level five ran ahead after the figure. This sudden action not only shocking her friends but prompting all of them to run after her as well.

It wasn't long until Ruiko had caught up to Mikoto, and with Kuroko's help Kazari wasn't too far behind either. Despite not knowing what they were running for, the three of them trusted Mikoto's judgment and followed her.

They reached a turn and came to a dead end. But they weren't alone.

With her back against the wall, the girl that couldn't have been a lot older than any of the first years was looking straight at them. The girl had brown hair and styled it not too unlike Mikoto did hers, but the orange hoodie was making it difficult to tell with any certainty.

"Wait, is that—?" Kazari tried but was cut off when Mikoto stood in front.

"Only one way to find out!" the Railgun said as she grasped for something in her pocket, but she wasn't fast enough.

At some point, Ruiko had grabbed a metal pole that was conveniently laying around and charged at the girl with a battle cry.

"Saten-san!"

Without showing any signs of hesitance, Ruiko swung the pole at the girl with all of her strength while aiming for her midsection. The girl didn't move in the slightest, and Ruiko was almost starting to worry that she was attacking an innocent girl.

That was until she felt her pole impact an invisible barrier-like object in front of the girl, protecting her from Ruiko's strike.

The next thing that Ruiko knew was that the pole had been thrown out of her hands, clattering a few meters away from her, and she was lying on the cold floor.

"Saten-san!"

"Saten-san!"

"Are you okay?!"

Ruiko only barely heard her friends' concerns, more interested in the girl in front of her. There was no doubt in her mind.

"That's her!" Ruiko exclaimed as she slowly got back on her feet. A sharp surge of pain caused the black haired girl to drop down to her knee again, however, as Kazari and Kuroko ran over.

In that little moment of distraction, Mikoto eyed the girl who did that to Ruiko and frowned.

Almost as if taking that as a cue, the invincible girl ran past the four girls, making a wider-than-necessary arc around the three girls in the center before disappearing in the distance.

"Saten-san—?" Kazari tried but was stopped when Ruiko used her shoulder as leverage to stand up again.

"I'm fine, it's just a scratch," Ruiko insisted as she looked at her hands. The black haired girl was more disappointed that the girl with the orange hoodie had disappeared, "At least we know that she's real."

"I guess you're right," Kuroko sighed, still eyeing her friend carefully before taking out her phone. Turning to Kazari, the two Judgment members nodded simultaneously, "We have to go, Konori-senpai called us. Onee-sama and Saten-san should go back as well."

"We'll be heading out first," Kazari announced as she eyed her friends. When Mikoto gave her the sign to go, she left with Kuroko to the Judgment office.

This left Mikoto with a Ruiko that she didn't know how to approach.

"Say, Misaka-san…" Ruiko suddenly trailed off, breaking Mikoto's train of thought but also removing the problem of how the brunette would have to break the silence, "Thank you."

"W-Why are you thanking me?" Mikoto stuttered, surprised at the sudden compliment and trying to think of a way to properly respond when Ruiko broke the silence once again.

"I mean, it was Misaka-san who made a deal to get her here, right?" Ruiko replied with a question of her own, slightly tilting her head before adding, "That's why you knew that she would be here."

Mikoto laughed, having been caught red-handed in the act. Instead of denying anything, she asked, "When did you figure it out?"

"Right before I hit that barrier around her," Ruiko noted as she recalled the events that had just transpired there, "Her eyes were empty, just like the eyes of the people that that esper controlled were."

The two girls then fell into a silence that was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, but neither of them knew what to do to break it.

"I should probably repa—" Ruiko tried, but was stopped quite forcefully by Mikoto.

"You don't have to do anything. I did this because I wanted to," the brunette said quickly with a determined look on her face as she turned to her friend before smiling, "We're friends, right?"

"Yeah…"

* * *

Later that night, Ruiko found herself sitting on the soft covers of her bed with a familiar object in her hands. It was the charm that she received from her mother when she was younger, and even in Academy City, she held it dear to her heart.

"Mama…" Ruiko muttered as she clasped the tiny object in her hands, her eyes closed as she let her emotions go, "I'm not an Esper. I'm still a level zero no matter how hard I try. But mama?"

Ruiko looked out the window, seeing hints of the new moon behind the clouds, and she couldn't help but smile.

"I have the greatest friends, and I couldn't be happier!"

* * *

 **And that wraps up this oneshot! I hope you liked both this, as well as all the other oneshots that have been uploaded leading up to this one!**

 **Happy Saten Ruiko Day, everybody!**


End file.
